It Is Hard to Get Over Someone When You Keep Online Stalking Them

Boy, does technology make stuff complicated these days! For instance, in the old days, you'd get dumped by someone and then never have to see his face again, except on the off-chance that you were scavenging about the grocery store having not showered for the past two days, and he was shopping for dinner with his hot new girlfriend. But now, now that we have the Internet, you can't get away from your exes! You are inexplicably drawn to them! You keep going back for more...

There are many reasons you might want to stay cyber-connected to an ex. For instance, just to keep tabs on him/her. To make sure he/she is not in jail yet. To make sure he/she is still in jail. To make yourself feel better. To make yourself feel worse. To avoid, or to purposely, casually, run into him/her. For the satisfaction, years later, of returning to his/her Facebook page and realizing, finally, that the two of you never would have worked in the first place because he/she only has 98 friends, and that's sad. Or, whatever. Because you're bored and don't have anyone new to online stalk yet! We all have our reasons.

But YourTango.com is concerned about this, concerned that it might be preventing us from hoisting ourselves up by our bootstraps and moving on with life, and love. So much so that they undertook a survey in which they identified that almost 60 percent of people have stayed Facebook friends with exes. And 74 percent have Google-stalked them! [We're doing it right now!]

"We're seeing this pattern where it's so much easier to reconnect with an ex, where in the past, they were out of sight, out of mind," YourTango's CEO, Andrea Miller, said.

YourTango has gone so far as to dub February 13 (the day before Valentine's Day, conveniently) as "Break Up With Your Ex" Day, a day in which you can finally shed those mind-forged manacles of love and be done with that person who didn't deserve you. Defriend, defriend, defriend!

Except...Facebook is a handy rolodex. Where are you going to keep track of all the people you used to date if not there? Also, given that the poll identified that a third of those who'd gone ex-surfing had actually slept with said exes after finding them online, well...beggars can't be choosers, that's all we're saying.

If you must online stalk, we suggest doing it with self-awareness and a few drinks. Isn't that just part of the healing process nowadays? You want us to quit cold turkey? Sheesh, what's the Internet for, anyway?

Announcing The First Annual Break Up With Your Ex Day [YourTango]
Ex-loves 'click' on the Web [NYP]

[JDoll][@thisisjendoll]